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That butt-ugly blue/glass/sloppy stucco monstrosity at the left is where the Krazy Kat Club once dwelled - you'll notice not only the window/door openings of the building across the alley are identical, but the identical "gumdrop" shaped concrete pilings all along the base as well.

It also seems as though this little nook/cove has, in a way, preserved and somewhat still celebrates the spirit of the Krazy Kat Club, as the building across the alley is the Green Lantern - a well-known (and, according to reviews, well-respected) gay bar today.

I know exactly where that picture is. The building on the right is still there. It's now the Green Lantern gay bar. The building looks like it hasn't changed at all. This is Green Court looking north from the middle of the alley toward Massachusetts Avenue. The building on the left where the Krazy Kat is located is now a gym. I'm not sure if it's the same building though. It looks like it might have been replaced.

I suppose people back then were unaccustomed to escaping into their TV sets on a daily basis. It's so great to see the power of imagination being exercised by these Krazy Kats to create a unique place of their own. Maybe we would all benefit from having a gypsy treehouse in our backyard.

It appears the Krazy Kats lifted their logo and some of their hep-ness from George Herriman's Krazy Kat cartoon, which was at the peak of its popularity at the time of the photos. The cartoon strip ran in major US dailies and was noted for its irreverance and odd characters. The two protagonists were Krazy (a "kat") and Ignatz (a mouse). Ignatz held an unrequited love for Krazy - and expressed his affection with bricks tossed at the noggin of his beloved (whose sex was never stated or even insinuated). Herriman employed some odd English spellings and syntax as evidenced by this witty and revealing exchange:

Krazy: “Why is Lenguage, Ignatz?”

Ignatz: “Language is that we may understand one another.”

Krazy: ”Can you unda-stend a Finn, or a Leplender, or a Oshkosher, huh?”

Ignatz: “No,”

Krazy: “Can a Finn, or a Leplender, or a Oshkosher unda-stend you?”

Ignatz: “No,”

Krazy: “Then I would say lenguage is that that we may mis-unda-stend each udda.”

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.